Ubuntu 10.10 Named Maverick Meerkat

Mark Shuttleworth has announced the name of Ubuntu 10.10 – And yes, in a post dated 2nd of April – ‘Maverick Meerkat’

In a post on his blog, titled ‘Shooting for the perfect 10.10 with the Maverick Meerkat’, he outlines his goals for the release due October 2010, and quantifies the reasons behind the name.

On Maverick:This is a time of change, and we’re not afraid to surprise people with a bold move if the opportunity for dramatic improvement presents itself. We want to put Ubuntu and free software on every single consumer PC that ships from a major manufacturer, the ultimate maverick move. We will deliver on time, but we have huge scope for innovation in what we deliver this cycle. Once we have released the LTS we have plenty of room to shake things up a little. Let’s hear the best ideas, gather the best talent, and be a little radical in how we approach the next two year major cycle.

On Meerkats:Meerkats are, of course, light, fast and social – everything we want in a Perfect 10. We’re booting really fast these days, but the final push remains. Changes in the toolchain may make us even faster for every application. We’re Social from the Start, but we could get even more tightly connected, and we could bring social features into even more applications. Meerkats are family-oriented, and we aspire to having Ubuntu being the safe and efficient solution for all the family netbooks. They are also clever – meerkats teach one another new skills. And that’s what makes this such a great community.Details
The full post offers up many exciting aims for the Meerkat to reach for.

“Our new theme is “Light”, and the next cycle will embrace that at many levels.”

“…we’ll revamp the Ubuntu Netbook Edition user interface.”

“We’ll embrace the web, aiming for the lightest, fastest web experience on any platform.”

“The fastest boot, the fastest network connect, the fastest browser.”

Thoughts
Fastest browser AND fastest browsing experience? That’s intriguing. Firefox is somewhat of a behemoth on netbooks especially and no-one likes having to wait to get browsing.

My guess is that UNE at least will ship with Chromium (UNE ARM ships with Chromium, as does Lubuntu) Perhaps even Google Chrome now it has integrated Flash, alleviating some of the burden on being able to ship with it OTB?